Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 January 1915 — TAKE WAR LIGHTLY [ARTICLE]

TAKE WAR LIGHTLY

Hindus Cheerfully Patient Under All Circumstances. One Complains That Prussian Soldier’s Neck Is Too Fat for Strangling— Meet Old Comrades in Arms. , London. —A correspondent of the Times, who signs himself “An AngloIndian,” contributes the following: “One woilld not have recognized the tired, war-worn crew who cAme In yesterday in a hail of pelting sleet. Most of them were sitting up in their beds chatting and laughing; pears, apples, cigarettes, chocolate and war pictures were strewn on the tables by "their sides, a hot scruhdewirsiia thff oiling and massago of the head, which the Indian loves, had altered the color of life to them. A Mussulman from the Khyber whom I had seen lifted in the day before on the shoulders of two orderlies, his face pitted with the debris thrown up by a shell, was lying back peacefully smoking a cigarette. . “I found the Dogras and Gurkhas together. They had come from the game part of the field. “‘How were you hit?’ I asked one. “ ‘By a pataka, sahib.’ “‘A cracker!’ At first I did not understand. A pataka is the cracker which is thrown about the streets when the religious processions pass in the bazaar. “ ‘A bomb,’ he explained. “It Blowly dawned on me that the man thus lightly dismissed a ‘Jack Johnson’ or a ‘Black Maria.’ ‘The war is not like the war in old times,’ he added regretfully. "Some of the wounded had not seen the Germans. Those who had did not

speak; respectfully of them. One man who had come to grips with a fat Prussian complained that he could not get the fingers of both hands round his opponent’s throat. ‘They are not bony men,’ he added. But this would mean less resistance to the kukri. While he was struggling and rolling on the ground he was shot point-blank through the lung and the bullet had come out through his shoulder.

“Another man told me how his comi pany and another were enfiladed by machine gun fire in the trenches and lost all their British officers. A havildar got the men together and led I them back in the dark to the line behind' They had been badly'pounded and felt a little lost rnd uncertain where. they would find themselves. By a piece of good fortune they hit on the trenches of the Sesforths. The | Highlanders and Gurkhas are old comrades in arms. “There was a story in the ward of a wounded havildar who fell into the hands of a Good Samaritan. The German officer spoke to him in "Hindustani, asking him the number of his regiment and where he came from. He bound up his wounds, gave him a drink and brought him a bundle of . straw to support his head. “The Gurkha as a rule is direct and matter of fact, more interested in ; physical than abstract affairs, as when he complains of the thickness of the German’s neck. But one meets a more Dumasesque type sometimes among the Sikhs and Mohammedans. 1 asked a Pathan how many of the enj einy he had killed. “‘A great many,’ he said; ‘one cani not count.’ | .‘IBe Souza, a delicate, cultured • youth, who was laid up with a slight j attack of pneumonia, gave me a vivid ! picture-,hf life in the trenches. The German trenches were not two hundred yards from his own, and he lay awake at -night listening to their accordions and concertina?. He seemed rather to like the music. One morning they hoisted up a huge placard on a pole with the inscription in large ( letters: , r . , “ Indians Fight on Our Side. “ ‘Woe to the British.’ ! It at once became a target. | “If it ever entered one’s head that the Indians had drifted-into this war j lightly and were -now depressed “br 1 their hardships and losses, half an

hour among these sepoys would dispel the idea at once. Where there Is discouragement or discontent It must find expression, directly or indirectly, especially among tlje sick. But there is the same story of cheerful patience and endurance everywhere. The English cause Is theirs, they are proud to be fighting with Tommy Atkins, and they do not count the cost. I have had It as first hand from of all castes and creeds, and I have not met an Indian medical service man or a regimental officer who does not tell me the same thing.”